THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



Aet. XLIX. — Notes from the Bermudas ; by Alexander 



Agassiz.* 



.... Before completing my article on the Bahamas I was 

 anxious to visit the Bermudas. I have spent about a month in 

 their examination and find that the story of their present con- 

 dition is practically that of the Bahamas, with the exception 

 that at the Bermudas we have an epitome as it were of the 

 physical changes undergone by the Bahamas. One cannot fail 

 to be struck with the insignificance of the corals as compared 

 with those of Florida, of the Bahamas and of the Windward 

 islands. It is true that on the ledge patches inside of the so- 

 called "ledge-flats" the Gorgonians and Millepores are very 

 flourishing, but the development of the true reef builders, of 

 the massive corals, is insignificant ; while the absence of Madre- 

 pores is remarkable and changes the whole aspect of the 

 coral growth. 



I shall have little to add to the description of the Bermudas 

 as given by Nelson, Rein, Thomson, Rice and Heilprin, but I 

 am inclined to take a different view of the part which the 

 corals now growing have played in the formation of the reef 

 ledge flats. The corals have not added any material part to the 

 reefs, they form only a thin veneer over the disintegrated ledges 

 of seolian rocks which constitute the so-called reef off the 

 south shore of Bermuda and the ledge flats of the outer reef 

 ring near the edge of the Bermuda Bank. ^Eolian rock ledges 

 underlie the growth of corals not only on the patches off the 

 south shore and on the ledge flats of the outer reef but they 



* From a letter to Professor James D. Dana, dated Bermuda, March 12th, 1894. 



Am. Jour. Soi. — Third Series, Vol. XLVII, No. 282.— June, 1804. 

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